REPORT: Legal Experts Side with Hillary Clinton on Use of Private Emails

According to an AP report, legal experts agree that Hillary Clinton’s lack of intent or motive to disclose or mishandle classified information undermines her detractors’ calls for an indictment.

Central to the email issue, as Hillary has repeatedly explained, is that certain emails which passed through her private server were retroactively classified as top secret. The retroactive classification is crucial, because it means she never knowingly mishandled top secret materials. Further:

The relatively few laws that govern the handling of classified materials were generally written to cover spies, leakers and those who illegally retain such information, such as at home. Though the view is not unanimous, several lawyers who specialize in this area said it’s a stretch to apply existing statutes to a former cabinet secretary whose communication of sensitive materials was with aides – not a national enemy.

The fact that legal experts have agreed that it is very unlikely that Hillary will be indicted, and that existing law isn’t designed to be (mis)applied to this situation, has largely gone uncovered by the national media.

The most likely explanation for that failure is because they want to continue to doggedly elevate this bureaucratic review into a criminal scandal, in order to take down the woman most likely to be the nation’s first female president.

A native of Dallas, Texas, Ginger McKnight-Chavers is a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and Harvard Law School. She was a Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellow at Sarah Lawrence College, and her debut novel, In the Heart of Texas, will be released in Fall 2016 by She Writes Press.